The current photography festival Photobookfest 2018

Moscow hosts the International Festival of Actual Photography and Photographic Books Photobookfest 2018.

The festival, which debuted last year, in 2018 became larger: now it lasts not 10 days, but two months. The main subject of the study is a photobook, which, thanks to digital technologies, has become one of the main means of expression for photographers. They are printed, they are bought, they see potential and devote festivals to them. Such exhibitions are an opportunity to establish a dialogue between photographers, equipment manufacturers, collectors and museum curators.

Yuri Kozyrev / NOOR. Iraq, Baghdad, April 10, 2003.

Kadir van Lohoyzen / NOOR. Nigeria, Lagos, 27 January 2017.

Nina Berman / NOOR. USA, New Jersey, July 4, 2013.

“A photobook allows you to create from a series of photos a single whole, existing as an autonomous art form. Today, the photobook is a dynamically developing platform for creative expression that changes after the development of technologies and opens new ways of interpreting and submitting images, “says Natalia Grigorieva-Litvinskaya, founder and director of the Lumiere Brothers Center for Photography, the main site of the festival.

The exhibition program is based on three projects of photo artists. The directions and genres are different, their theme of actual photography unites them. The western photo is represented by the project of photographer Nils Ackermann and journalist Sebastien Gober “In search of Lenin.”

Nils Ackermann. Kiev. February 5, 2016.

Photographs of demolished and refined statues of the leader illustrate the process of decommunization. Japanese photographer Ikuru Kuvadzhima – the author of the project “I, Oblomov” – is trying in a series of self-portraits to plunge into “Oblomovism” and explore the post-Soviet space.

Ikuru Kuvajima. The project “I, Oblomov.” 2017.

Ikuru Kuvajima. The project “I, Oblomov.” 2017.

Ikuru Kuvajima. The project “I, Oblomov.” 2017.

Exhibition “Noor. Go and see “unites the work of photojournalists of Dutch photo agency Noor, whose main specialization is reports from hot spots.

Yuri Kozyrev / NOOR. Ras Lanuf, Libya, March 11, 2011.

Also, the festival will hold lectures and master classes for photographers, sum up the results of the Book Mock-up Contest. A separate exposition is devoted to photobooks included in the shortlist of the Unseen Dummy Award, organized by the largest photographic festival in Europe Unseen. In addition, a series of portfolio-revues will take place where photographers and artists will be able to show their works to Russian and foreign experts: curators, publishers, representatives of photo agencies, magazine editors and art critics.